The continuous long-term monitoring of medical conditions such as diabetes presents challenges for both patients and medical care providers. Traditional methods that require the patient to repeatedly obtain and test blood or other fluids can be painful and inconvenient, and this may lead to reduced compliance on the part of the patient.
Implantable sensors have been developed to mitigate these drawbacks. However, implantable sensors currently used in continuous glucose monitoring devices suffer from a limited range of functionality. They are designed to measure glucose levels in the 40-400 mg/dL range or in the 150-600 range, but not both. If they do have a greater response range the resolution and accuracy are severely compromised. However, blood glucose analysis strip-based systems can be used to measure glucose levels that fall within either of those ranges. For this reason, and for overall performance limitations, current implantable sensor systems might not be considered by the FDA as an equivalent of a blood glucose strip-based system.